This Nextgov ebook looks at updating the federal government’s technology and operations.

The federal government gets a bad rep for its old, outdated and costly IT systems, and it’s well-earned.

Federal agencies spend four times more maintaining sometimes ancient IT systems afloat than they spend investing in new technologies, and that coincides with the government’s poor record in providing the kinds of customer experiences citizens have become accustomed to in the commercial world. Building on bipartisan momentum in the later years of the Obama administration, the Trump administration has approached IT modernization as a strategic imperative and focal point of the Presidential Management Agenda. The administration launched the IT Modernization Centers of Excellence and is piloting the effort—designed to create reusable best practices for modernizing tech and serve delivery across civilian government—at the Agriculture Department.

Meanwhile, the Defense Department and intelligence agencies, including the CIA and National Security Agency, continue to lead impressive IT modernization efforts of their own. Cloud has become synonymous with IT modernization in the national security space, a far cry from even five years ago, when disparate databases were the default for intelligence agencies. The push to modernize the government’s IT systems, across all its branches, is ramping up. In this ebook, we’ll discuss how policymakers have set the tone for IT modernization with objectives and directives and how agencies are attempting to meet them.